Dreams, Visions, Imaginations

Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Views of the World to Come

Jens Schröter, Tobias Nicklas, Armand Puig i Tàrrech, Jens Schröter, Tobias Nicklas, Armand Puig i Tàrrech

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9783110713527
• eBook ISBN: 9783110714777
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

The contributions in this volume are focused on the historical origins, religious provenance, and social function of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, including so-called 'Gnostic' writings. Although it is disputed whether there was a genre of 'apocalyptic literature, ' it is obvious that numerous texts from ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and other religious milieus share a specific view of history and the world to come. Many of these writings are presented in form of a heavenly (divine) revelation, mediated through an otherworldly figure (like an angel) to an elected human being who discloses this revelation to his recipients in written form. In different strands of early Judaism, ancient Christianity as well as in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Islam, apocalyptic writings played an important role from early on and were produced also in later centuries. One of the most characteristic features of these texts is their specific interpretation of history, based on the knowledge about the upper, divine realm and the world to come.

Against this background the volume deals with a wide range of apocalyptic texts from different periods and various religious backgrounds.

Index of Ancient Sources

• Hebrew Bible/Septuagint
  • Gen
    • 1 – 3
    • 1:1‒2:3
    • 1:16
    • 2‒3
    • 2:1
    • 3:1
    • 3:14 – 19
    • 6
    • 6:1 – 4
    • 19:17
    • 19:26
    • 22:2
    • 49:10
  • Exod
    • 1:15
    • 3:9 (LXX)
    • 7‒9
    • 7:9‒11
    • 7:11
    • 7:20‒21
    • 7:22‒23
    • 8:15
    • 8:19
    • 8:32
    • 9:7
    • 9:12
    • 9:23
    • 9:25
    • 9:34‒35
    • 10:12
    • 10:20 – 21
    • 10:27
    • 11:6
    • 11:9‒10
    • 20:5
    • 20:16
    • 20:17
    • 21:5
    • 22:17
    • 22:25
    • 23:24
    • 24:10
    • 24:17
    • 25:40
    • 40:35
  • Lev
    • 18:8 – 16
    • 18:18
    • 18:20
    • 20:10
    • 21:13
    • 25:35‒37
    • 26:1
  • Num
    • 5:12
    • 21
    • 22:22
    • 23:7
    • 23:18
    • 24:3
    • 24:15 – 23
    • 25:2
    • 32:13
  • Deut
    • 2:14
    • 5:20...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Where Should We Look for the Roots of Jewish Apocalypticism?
• Apocalyptic Literature and Experiences of Contact with the Other-World in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity
• Time and History in Ancient Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Writings
• Apocalyptic Writings in Qumran and the Community’s Idea of History
• This Age and the Age to Come in 2 Baruch
• Jesus and Jewish Apocalyptic
• Time and History: The Use of the Past and the Present in the Book of Revelation
• Dreams, Visions and the World-to-Come according to the Shepherd of Hermas
• Ezra and his Visions: From Jewish Apocalypse to Medieval Tour of Hell
• Views of the World to Come in the Jewish-Christian Sibylline Oracles
• Defying the Divine: Jannes and Jambres in Apocalyptic Perspective
• Between Jewish and Egyptian Thinking: The Apocalypse of Sophonias as a Bridge between Two Worlds?
• From the ‘Gnostic Dialogues’ to the ‘Apostolic Memoirs’: Literary and Historical Settings of the Nag Hammadi Apocalypses
• What is ‘Gnostic’ within Gnostic Apocalypses?
• Being in corpore/carne and extra corpus: some interrelations within the Apocalypsis Pauli/Visio Pauli
• From Historical Apocalypses to Apocalyptic History: Late Antique Historians and Apocalyptic Writings
• Qur’anic Eschatology in its Biblical and Late Ancient Matrix
• The Book of Revelation and Visual Culture
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Subjects